


Oblitus

by JaneScarlett



Category: Hannibal (TV), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, alright yes i'm poking a little fun at them, crossover nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-28
Updated: 2013-09-28
Packaged: 2017-12-27 17:56:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/981904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaneScarlett/pseuds/JaneScarlett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Sometimes I don’t know where I am,” Will says.  “I don't know who I am.  And then my dreams... my dreams feel so real.  I dream I’m someone else.”</p>
<p>Lecter wordlessly hands him the pad and a pen; and Will obediently draws a clock face, stabbing the pen nib into the thick, creamy paper as he scribbles.</p>
<p>“It's 9:27 am.   I'm in Maryland, and my name-”  His tongue stutters.  </p>
<p>If he wasn’t Will Graham, then who could he be?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oblitus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Savageandwise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Savageandwise/gifts).



> Happy birthday Sarah!!!!!!  
> With that being said… I blame you and your abstract comments (doesn't Will look like Harry? Dolarhyde and Voldemort were played by the same person!) for making my brain implode and produce this.

i. **Clarividi** / _klah-ri-WE-di/  
: a spell to enable the caster to see clearly_

“I think,” Will says, “that there’s no going about it. I think I’ve already arrived at the state of being crazy.”

Bombshell dropped, he clenches his hands into fists in his lap, stares belligerently at the man in front of him. Lecter  
looks politely back -his face blandly interested, implacably serene- and gives nothing away.

Sometimes, Will thinks resentfully, he wants to say something to really shock the good Dr Lecter. The problem, of course, is that not much seems to. Murderous patients, men bleeding out as he watches… the man is inscrutable. Even now -admitting his fear that he might be legitimately insane- only a brief flash of light glittering in the therapist’s pupils suggests that there might be an intelligent and analytical presence lurking within his calm exterior.

“I choose not to believe that crazy is a state to arrive at,” Lecter murmurs. “But why do you think that about yourself?”

“Sometimes I don’t know where I am,” Will says, his voice sounding whiny even to his own ears. “I don't know who I am.  
And then my dreams... my dreams feel so real. I dream I’m someone else.”

Lecter wordlessly hands him the pad and a pen; and Will obediently draws a clock face, stabbing the pen nib into the thick, creamy paper as he scribbles.

“It's 10:13 am. I'm in –“ he pauses, for a moment unable to remember where he is. It’s a place with a compound name, two words stuck together as if with glue to make up something else. Meads-ville, Meades-hot…no, not hot, hog… Hogs-meade… no, it starts with an M… Meades-land?

“Maryland,” Will says triumphantly, “and my name-”

His tongue stutters. Another name is forcing its way through his lips. Another moment; his lips draw away from his teeth, almost into a smile as the first sound comes out in a huff of air.

“My name is huhhh...”

It feels like he's been socked in the stomach, and he doubles over. Lecter leans toward him, smooth features drawn into a frown.

“Will? What’s wrong?”

And just like that, he’s back. Shoves the pad roughly at Lecter, the pen falling with a sharp clatter to the floor that makes him wince.

“It's 10:13 am, I'm in Maryland and my name is Will Graham.”

Lecter nods, a tiny pleased smile on his face; and Will closes his eyes, searching for a calm within his mind that he didn’t think he’d ever possessed.

* * *

ii. **Somnio** / _SOM-ne-oh/  
: a verbal spell, normally spoken first thing upon waking to enable caster to remember their dreams. Can be used later in the day, but the efficiency decreases._

“Tell me about your childhood, Will.” The psychiatrist’s voice is soft, hypnotic. Will cracks an eyelid, lips twisted in distaste. 

“That’s rather expected of you, Dr. Lecter,” he shoots back. “‘ _Tell me about your childhood_.’ I’d expect better questions from you.”

The truth is that he doesn’t think too much about his childhood, if he can help it. His mother is a dim memory: a fall of long hair down her back, a faint melody that she’d hummed and the smell of lavender as she held him in her arms. 

His father is better. There is more to remember of him, if he tries hard. Light reflecting off the wire frames of his glasses, an intense look on his face as he teaches Will how to repair a boat engine. The unrelenting heat of summer days, the sun beating down on his bare arms and legs as he sits for hours with his father on a deck, casting line after line, hoping to reel in enough fish for dinner.

But even he is hazy in Will’s memory. If he thinks too hard, tries too hard to remember the places they'd lived, things they'd done; the memories rip like cheap tissue paper. It gives his past a shady, transient quality. Nothing to fixate on. 

Funny how he can look at cases, put together clues and remember people and faces with such blinding clarity; and yet his own past eludes him.

“My parents were good people,” Will says finally, brushing his hand over his face. He squeezes his temples between his fingers, closing his eyes tight. “My childhood was nothing special.”

“Then tell me about your dreams.” Lecter leans forward, giving Will the uncomfortable feeling he was being inspected like a fly caught in a spiderweb. “You’ve mentioned them before.”

“They’re dreams, just dreams. Like everyone has.”

_No_ , a little voice prompts him. _Not like everyone has. You’ve never had dreams like everyone else_. It seems, if he thinks hard, that he can remember someone staring at him in surprise.

_“You’re seeing into his mind! Into You-Know-Who’s mind!”_

_“It’s dangerous!” A female voice, familiar and bossy. “You’re supposed to be emptying your mind when you sleep, so you don’t see his thoughts.”_

_“But it’s useful, isn’t it?” It is Will –but not Will- speaking. Pleading for understanding. The dreams are dangerous and wrong… leading him into the mind of another. But if he could understand them! Use them to help!_

“They’re just dreams,” Will repeats aloud. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

Lecter temples his hands beneath his chin. “If I may say,” he says quietly, “I think nothing about your thought process is ordinary, Will. And not your dreams, either.

“Would you share them? At least one. Anything… recurring?”

Recurring. He rolls the word around on his tongue, and his mouth speaks of its own volition.

“Light. I see _light_ when I dream.”

“Ah.” It is all Lecter says. Will tries to explain.

“It’s like a flash. Awake, its bright gold -almost sparkling- when I think of cases, when I put myself into the mind of a killer. 

“But when I sleep,” Will is whispering now, “it’s green. A green flash, and screaming.”

“Maybe you should think about where that green flash is coming from?” Lecter’s voice, smoothly hypnotic makes the most innocuous suggestions sound rational. “Think about who might be screaming.”

“It’s a woman, I know that.”

“Could it be Abigail?”

“No,” Will says, closing his eyes again. “I might not always know who I am or where I am, but I know that. It’s not her.”

* * *

iii. **Amat novodis** / _ah-MAH-t no-WO-dis/  
: a curse of the ‘love scorned’ variety. Able to change love to hate._

He always leaves Dr. Lecter’s office feeling drained somehow. The side effect of therapy, he tells himself wryly. Of letting someone into his head to rummage around with the plumbing and move the furniture aside. It would be difficult to deal with at the best of times; but it is especially difficult because every time he leaves Dr. Lecter, he knows what he will see.

“Mr Graham.”

In truth, it is not a what, but a who he dreads; and Will turns, not surprised in the least to see her lounging against a car as though she has every right to be there. A teal coat, belted snugly around a slender waist. Red curls tumbling around her face, and a knowing smile curving her lips.

“Miss Lounds.” His distaste makes his words emerge clipped, foreign-sounding. “Are you following me?”

“Do you think you’re interesting enough for me to follow?”

“No, but you don’t seem to follow regular rules. You live by reporter logic.”

“Reporter logic?” Freddie laughs. “You make me sound like I’m not even human. As if I’m not the same as… well, as  
you. And I’m merely here, making conversation. Saying hello.”

“Well, now you have.”

There is a pause. Freddie eyes him speculatively.

“You’re looking a bit tired, if you don’t mind me saying, Will… do you mind if I call you Will?”

“It’s my name, isn’t it?”

Freddie’s smile fades slightly. “Is it?” she asks, fiddling with her purse. He can see a pen handle sticking out the opening; thick and glossy, like burnished wood.

“You’re the crack reporter; you tell me.”

She looks away, her expression sad and lost; for just a moment Will’s resolve, his steadfast and inexplicable dislike of her crumbles… until she turns to face him again. Her smile is back, now. Wide and insincere; and a fresh surge of hatred for Freddie Lounds surges through his veins.

_Don’t like her, don’t pity her, don’t even look at her. She is nothing to you; nothing, nothing, nothing._

It is like a foreign thing suddenly in his mind, like a voice from nowhere urging his dislike. He has always felt this when he sees her. It doesn’t matter what she does or says; it is like something hardwired into his brain to hate Freddie Lounds.

“Yes,” Freddie says softly. “I suppose it is your name. **Will**.” Her emphasis on that word grates against him, dancing on his every nerve.

“If I wasn’t Will Graham, who do you think I would be?”

He can’t help the question. It flies heedlessly out his mouth, and Freddie ducks her head. Slim, pale fingers fuss with the belt of her teal coat, red curls obscure her face. His vision narrows, and she is suddenly all he can see. A still-life of a woman torn in contemplation; a spot of colours against the grey Maryland streets. Her image burns into his mind, so familiar he can almost grasp the connection; and then it is gone, and he blinks, confused.

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Freddie murmurs. “Who you would be, if you weren’t who you think?”

She spins on her heel, turning away. “Good day, Mr Graham. I’m sure I’ll see you around soon.

“Oh, and Will?” she calls over her shoulder, not looking at him or even breaking her stride. 

“You always get like this on a case, don’t you? So involved…” Her voice sounds oddly teasing. Light-hearted, even. “Let someone else handle the big things sometimes. You should go get some sleep.”

* * *

iv. **Obscuro** / _ob-SCOO-ro/  
: spell to cloud the mind, cause confusion_

He tosses and turns in bed, aware of soft cotton sheets beneath his restless body, soft snores from a half-dozen dogs outside, the green glow of his alarm clock. From within the muddiness of his brain, everything feels both real and fake. Like him. Will Graham, a man who barely seems to exist within the world.

Even when he finally falls into slumber, it isn’t a relief. He is merely changing one reality for another; and it might be a dream, but sensations still batter at his senses. The tick of a clock in the hallway, the feel of soft wool as he swirls a heavy black coat over his shoulders, pats absently at his pockets.

(The part of him that is still Will wonders abstractly about that coat. It’s more like a bathrobe than anything else; but why, even in a dream, would he wear a bathrobe to go out?)

He turns to see her hurrying down the stairs toward him, and something about the image freezes him in place. Familiar, so familiar… why does it seem that he’s seen this before? The flash of her fingers, slim and pale against the teal of the robe she was belting around her waist. Her red hair, long and falling in sleep-mussed curls over her face.

“Don’t go,” she murmurs as she reaches him, touches her fingers lightly to his cheek. “It’s not him. Voldemort has been gone for years.”

Even after all this time, after three children and a life together he can sense her reluctance to use the name; and his heart clenches in pity.

“I have to go, Ginny. You saw the reports. What if it’s him?”

“It won’t be. It’ll be some other nutter, pretending. But if you’re so set on going, then let me come with you,” she pleads. “There’s no other Auror available to act as your backup. Or give Ron a call; I’m sure he’d be pleased to come help.”

“There’s no need. I’m not going to capture him right now; merely stake him out, see if there’s anything to worry about. If there is, I’ll call for backup immediately. Now, you go back to bed. I’ll be back in five minutes, Ginny. I promise.”

He apparates away, her protests already distant in his ears before he’d even completed the spell. Pulls on his invisibility cloak, creeps into the house to watch a tall man, slim and impossibly muscled with a dragon tattoo on his back. He is careful, careful and quiet... mice would have nothing on him as he whispers a word noiselessly; and even the slither of his feet on the floor is muffled. 

But apparently, it is not enough. The man spins around, revealing a normal enough face: close-cropped blonde hair, sculpted features, piercing blue eyes. Even in the dream, Will is surprised. He isn’t sure what he expected. A forehead, flat and broad; absent nose, slitted eyes. Something monstrous and inhuman… but he seems like a man, like any other.

Until he bellows: “Petrificus totalus!” He is a man right until that moment when he opens his mouth. And then, the monster lives.

“I knew you were there,” the dragon-man whispers, stripping Will’s invisibility away. “Did you think I wouldn’t have put a Homenum Revelio charm on the house? I knew someone from the Ministry would come to interfere. And look what they’ve sent me! The very person I hoped would come.”

He prowls around; and although his dream-self is frozen, Will can see from a distracting double angle. He is both the petrified man -glasses sliding down his nose, beads of cold sweat on his forehead -and outside of his body, cloud-like and amorphous in the corner, observing.

“You’re wondering if I’m him,” the Dragon says conversationally. He gives a short laugh, throws his head back so that the light gleams dully off the misshapen teeth in his mouth. “Perhaps I am. I wasn’t always though.” A frown wrinkles the Dragon’s forehead; he whimpers slightly as if in pain. He shakes his head quickly, side to side, to dislodge whatever memories he is trying to escape.

“But I am now. The Great Red Dragon comes to me, fills me with his majesty, makes me more and better than I ever was. And he laughs at you! He laughs that you ever thought he’d really be gone. He is mighty; he can not die forever!

“But he says that you may still doubt. He says that I need to say two words, a name, for you to know for certain… but I think that perhaps I don’t need to tell you his name. Maybe telling you two different words will be just as good.” The Dragon leans closer; and although he is directing his words to the man in front of him, from the corner the amorphous shadowy Will winces. He remembers all too well this entire exchange (if one could even call it an exchange, between a lisping man and one unable to talk) - he remembers the horror of misshapen teeth close to him, breath that smelled of rotten meat - he remembers thinking that he owes Ginny an apology; he should never have come here alone.

The Dragon leans closer, mouth gaping slightly, drawing in a chillingly rattling breath; and Will flinches, half-remembering what came next. A voice hissing “Avada-“ in his ear before desperation forces him into action. 

He needs help; he needs someone to save him if he can’t save himself. He needs something to protect him. And if he is lucky enough to escape, he thinks frantically, he will tell Ginny that he loves her. He will never, ever doubt her instincts or judgements again; he will be happy, if he ever gets away from this madman to trust Ginny with everything…

Will sits up in bed drenched in sweat; but mind and body attached once more. He pads to the bathroom, sticking his head beneath the faucet, barely wincing at the cold water streaming down his face, sliding in icy rivulets down his shoulders, his sodden shirt.

Would that he could wash away that last image before the dream faded. His mind shrieking words in incoherent fear - a blankness in his eyes, his body sagging like jelly as the spell binding him faded. His protector was there in one blink of an eye to the next and blasted the Dragon away from him before circling back. A stag, a silver stag seemingly made of pure light; that even as he watched turned darker and darker until it was pitch black… and then it lowered its head and stabbed him, right through the heart.

* * *

v. **Sanat** / _sa-NAH-t/  
: a general healing spell. Used more for head/muscles aches, rather than physical injury._

“It’s 3:11 in the afternoon,” Will hears himself say, handing the pad back to Dr Lecter with a grimace. “I’m in Maryland, and my name is-“

As ever, his tongue and his brain simply refuse to work in tandem for a moment. He blinks, confused. He can remember lying flat on his back in a garden, his head feeling like it had been split open; and a woman kneeling over him, frantically fiddling with a blood pressure cuff, a stethoscope dangling off kilter from her ears.

“What happened to him?” she hisses angrily at someone just out of his view.

“I told him not to go. I asked him to at least wait for backup, but he said-“ the unseen speaker let out a muffled sob “-that he’d be back in a few minutes, no need to worry. But then the clock said mortal peril, and I knew…”

“Stop crying; it’ll be alright. It’s good you fetched me; although,” she continued in a lower voice, turning back to check on him, “why you didn’t just bring him to the hospital…”

“I thought you’d be better for him. You know him; since you were in school you’ve always been there when he needed help, or did something frightening or…”

“But I’m not even a trained Healer!” The woman turns away, and he opened his eyes to squint up at her. Her hair is freshly washed; but the humidity and her anxious movements turn the dark curls into a halo of frizz, and the water dripping from the tendrils of the dark curls to pool on his face like tears.

“Yes,” she continues in a softer voice, “I do know some things for healing, but it’s more for talking to the people I meet at work in the Ministry… those who think they’re worthless because of how they’ve been treated. I don’t treat bodies, Ginny. I treat… minds, I suppose you’d say.”

He let out a little groan, and she turned to him again, her face pale with concern. 

“Will-“ she gasps, pressing a hand against his forehead, and staring down at her blood-stained fingers in horror. “Will you grab those bandages for me? He’s bleeding again.” She throws her arm backwards and the unseen woman places a heap of white bandages in her hands, and she leans over him again.

“You’ll be alright,” she promises hastily, as he closes his eyes. “I’m taking care of you, and it’ll be all-“

Will blinks, the red and white and red of Dr Lecter’s curtains swim in his exhausted mind. For a moment, all he can hear is Alana’s voice, the shrill panic. Will you grab those bandages for me? 

It seems he’s heard her sound like that so often when it comes to him. 

“My name is Will Graham,” he whispers, and Dr Lecter nods.

* * *

vi. **Subauscolti** / _soo-bow-SCOL-ti/_  
: enables the caster to listen hear over long distances  
nb: the unconfirmed -but suspected- spell used placed on Weasley Wizard Wheezes ‘extendable ears’)

He leaves in a daze. Sometimes he wishes the good doctor wasn’t so good at his job. He is there to help, he has always promised with a saturnine smile. He is there to help Will shift the rubbish from his brain, to teach him to make the most of his gift –as he calls it- of pure empathy.

If what he possesses is indeed a gift, then Will wishes it were returnable.

“I get too involved,” he tells Lecter. “I get into their brains, and it tears me apart.”

“But perhaps you should remember… to feel, to love is the greatest gift.”

“Except that I don’t love them.”

“Do you not?” Lecter seems amused for some reason. “Even as you hate them, even as you wish they would not draw you into their minds and reasoning… do you really not find something to love in them? Their ability to express themselves in ways that you do not, that you can not?”

There is something about the doctor’s soft hypnotic inflections that almost makes Will nod and agree. He fights off the instinct, straining to throw Lecter’s words from his mind.

“Even if I did love them,” he managed to retort weakly, “who says love is such a wonderful thing?”

“Love,” Lecter says softly, “can be used in many ways. Like a shield, like a warm, protective coat… or like a weapon. It is how it is expressed that can be dangerous, both to the one who loves and to the recipient of that affection.”

He tries to shake the good doctor’s words from his mind as he leaves his office; but it is never as easy as he hopes it will be. And then, standing across the street in a deep conversation are the women he thinks of as opposite poles of the dimensions of love and hate. Alana’s back is to him, but he can tell that she is saying something meant to be both beseeching and encouraging; and beside her is Freddie, shaking her head in frustration. He can hear snatches of their conversation as he walks over, unhurried. Low voices speaking nonsense being carried on the wind, worried glances flying rapidly between them.

“He hates me,” Freddie says. “That’s very hard to bear, Hermione.”

“He doesn’t hate you. You know what the Healers said. They think that he tried to cast a Patronus charm, but something backfired. Verbal spells, especially ones as strong as that simply aren’t meant to be nonverbal. He might have succeeded in making something that protected him, but it fed on the darkness and turned on him. Turned love into hate…”

“It didn’t do anything to how he feels about you,” Freddie says bitterly. “He still seems to care about you as much as he always did.”

Alana shrugs. “Maybe it’s because I was the one he saw when he woke up. He doesn’t remember me, you know. He only remembers that Alana Bloom is someone he can trust when he’s hurt. And his feelings for you…” she shifts uncomfortably. “Maybe it’s as simple as what he was thinking of when he cast the spell?”

Freddie snorts, brushing her hair back from her face. “So I was his happy memory, right? Love and trust turned to… into what he feels for me now, when he sees me.

“Is that Healer really helping?” she asks abruptly. “You said he was someone you knew, that the Ministry recommended. But there’s something about him…” she shivers. “He frightens me.”

Alana pauses, biting her lip in consternation. “I did trust him,” she murmurs. “I’ve known him a long time, worked with other of his patients. He always seemed excellent…” Her voice fades, and she looks down, unable to meet Freddie’s eyes.

“To tell the truth, Ginny… sometimes I wonder the same thing. He swears he’s getting better; and sometimes I see him and I think the Healer is right. Our-“ she pauses, rolling her eyes “- _Will_ seems so very peaceful, especially after the Healer was whispering in his ear. And then other times, I swear that who he is -who he really is- is trying to break through. He becomes paranoid and erratic… and I’ve seen that behaviour before. It was like Mr Crouch in our fourth year, when he broke free of the Imperi-ow!“

Alana hisses in pain, pulling her hand from Freddie’s and glaring; but Freddie smiles insouciantly, staring straight into Will’s eyes.

“If it isn’t our Mr Graham,” she says pleasantly; and Alana whips around, one hand fluttering nervously around at her throat.

“Will,” she gasps, her cheeks flushing pink. “Freddie and I were just speaking of one of my –well, he’s not exactly a patient,” she corrects herself hastily. “I would never want to break confidentiality.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Will says. “I know that _you_ have scruples.”

Her blush deepens at that, and Freddie looks away, as though bored.

“I trust you had a good session?” she asks. She is mocking him, he thinks; and Will narrows his eyes at her. Pushes his glasses up his nose, his lips set in a stern line.

“And if I did, Miss Lounds? Are you planning to write that in the next edition of the Tattler? ‘Will Graham is nearly cured!’ What a headline that would be!”

Freddie shrugs as she turns away. “While I know you seem always to think the worst of me, Will… please believe me when I say that there are a lot of people, who would be happy to know that you are sane and healthy again.”

* * *

vii. **Solva** / _SOL-wa/  
: enables the caster to disintegrate solid matter. A more gentle spell than Reducto._

“Have you had any interesting cases?” Dr Lecter raises an eyebrow with a casual smile. He is trying to draw conversation out of Will, trying to draw anything out of him than shrugs and antisocial silence.

Sometimes, Will obliges. He will tell Lecter about what he is doing with the Bureau, what he has seen and done and imagined and dreamed. But today he feels like being silent. Today his head hurts too much, and his dreams last night were too real, and he is wondering if anyone exists that he can really trust.

“I dreamed about Alana last night,” he blurts out; and Lecter leans forward with a charming mix of interest and reticence.

“What sort of dream was it, Will?”

“Not- not that sort,” he stutters, nervously brushing his hand through his hair. “I save those sorts of thoughts for when I’m awake enough to enjoy them.”

Lecter chuckles, but Will shudders slightly. There is some sort of attraction there, between him and Alana… but at the same time, there is something that warns him off her. As though she wears a sign around her neck that says ‘keep away’.

In fact, if he thinks about it too much, it seems like she is already taken. But no, that couldn’t be right. He is sure that he would have seen her with someone… or maybe he had already? There was once that he swore he’d seen her with a red haired man; sitting over coffee, smiling and laughing with her face tipped up to him in complete trust. But then he’d blinked –once, twice- and the name Alana no longer seemed familiar on his tongue... and he realised he was staring at a stranger. Not Alana at all.

“I dreamed that we were at a hospital. It was like something out of a cartoon; crazy patients in the waiting room who had grown wings, or had flowers instead of heads.” Will shakes his head, rolling his eyes with a self-conscious smile. “I don’t know where my subconscious found all that.

“But,” he sobers, “she kept holding my hand, telling me I would be fine. They would fix it. And they would find someone for me to talk to, so I wouldn’t be confused anymore.”

“And then she found me,” Lecter said softly. “I’m here for you, Will, so you have someone to help you make order of what is in your head.”

“What _is_ in my head, though? You told me once that crazy is not a state to arrive at… but I swear to you, state or not, sometimes I think I’m really there. No,” Will shakes his head, holds up a hand to force Lecter not to refute him. His eyes are burning as though he hasn’t slept in years, his head feels like someone has pressed a white-hot wire to the centre of his forehead… but his mind is clear. Shiny and clean and clear, for the first time in weeks, it feels like.

“I remember leaving in the middle of the night, leaving my wife and going out on a case.” Will’s voice is soft, and he is lost in memories. They play through his mind, with the blurred edges of a barely recollected film.

“I remember going into a house and seeing a man with a dragon on his back, and I remember thinking that he was… that I knew him. That he was channelling someone who was supposed to be dead. And that he was going to kill me, that this time he might really succeed… and I was thinking of my wife, thinking that I had to get out of there… and then there was a stag that got rid of the man and stabbed me…

“And then I don’t remember anything.” His voice is thin, strained with emotion. “So tell me, Dr Lecter; was all that a dream? Because it seems like that was the start of it. I always thought everything started with the Hobbs’ case –the dreams, the sleepwalking, that dark stag that seems to haunt and protect me- but if I think hard, it’s not! It was the man with the dragon! And do you think that maybe, I’ll never be right until I’ve found him?”

He repeats the last words, over and over until they seem like a string of meaningless nonsense. “Maybe I won’t be right till I’ve found him, maybe I’ll stay crazy until I’ve found the Dragon again-“ He dissolves into a mix of mirthless giggles and hysterical gasps until he looks up to find the doctor by his side.

Sometime during Will’s speech Lecter must have stood up, must have taken the three steps to kneel down at Will’s side and swiftly punch him… because the last thing Will remembers is a fist flying toward his face, and then darkness. Blessed darkness, cool and deep and soothing.

And then the voices. He can hear them, understand what they say but comprehending the meaning is another story.

_“What do you mean you had to knock him out?”_

_“He was hysterical Mrs Potter. He needs to remember who he is, but gently. Not all at once. The spell that went wrong can damage his mind if the memories come back too swiftly.”_

_“It’s already damaging his mind.” A dry voice, female and bossy and worried. “I think he’s sick, somewhere in his brain. Anyway, it’s been weeks, Healer. Weeks when you said he’d get better… and he’s not. He still doesn’t remember his friends or family. He doesn’t even remember his own name! Can you imagine if this gets out? Harry Potter, damaged by a spell of his own doing?”_

Something inside him shifts and breaks and reforms, something in him recognises those two words. That name. _Harry Potter_. Him.

Now he can identify those voices. Hermione and Ginny. Now he remembers exactly who they are, what they mean to him; and he tries to stir, to pull himself out of that darkness. But he can’t. He is still mired in it, his brain still feverish and overwhelmed as he tries to swim out of that river of unconsciousness.

_“Or is it **your** spell?” Ginny demands shrewdly. “ **Are** you using Imperio on my husband to make him crazy… make him sick? Because he doesn’t look well. And if you hurt him, I’ll hex you. Don’t think I won’t.”_

_“I have a great affection for the Boy-Who-Lived, Mrs Potter. I think we all do. And I assure you: I know how minds work, and how to fix them…” There is a heavy sigh, and then he speaks again, softer and more forceful._

_“I admit that the things I do seem like I play into his delusions… but you wanted me as a Healer because I engage in non-traditional methods. What I do, I do because Harry must accept me. He must trust me to be able to help him. And I am trying to.”_

* * *

viii. **Rennervate** / _ren-er-VA-tay/  
: brings the recipient of the spell back to wakefulness._

He wakes up all at once, as though a bucket of cold water was thrown over him; and he blinks and gasps aloud. Lecter is leaning over him, holding his ever-present pad of paper and fountain pen, one hand lightly touching Will’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry about that,” he says. “I had to take a call; and I was gone so long I think that you drifted off.”

Will rubs his eyes, tilting his head right and then left to ease the tension. “I suppose I did sleep,” he admits. “I don’t even remember what we’ve been talking about in this session though.”

Lecter makes a tiny, elegant shrug of his shoulders. “You wouldn’t talk today. I think that your mind was too confused. Sometimes, silence and self-reflection are the best medicine.

“Still, our time today is almost over. If you wouldn’t mind?”

Will takes the pad, obediently draws the clock face that he has come to accept as being part and parcel of Lecter’s therapy.

“It’s 9:27, I’m in Maryland, and my name is-“ The pause, the search for the right name is almost an automatic response by now. There is something tickling the back of his mind, like trying to grasp a butterfly.

“Say it,” Lecter murmurs, eyes boring straight into his. There is something uncomfortable about that. Will has always hated meeting people’s eyes. There is too much to see in eyeballs; and Lecter’s seem to hold twice the usual amount of secrets and distractions.

“Say what your name is.” It is not a polite request, it is a command; and Will draws a shuddering breath.

“My name is – Will Graham.”

Lecter nods, seeming both pleased and disappointed; and Will sinks back into his chair, feeling -for some reason- oddly disappointed himself.


End file.
